Stéphanie Boulay - SOCAN Song of the Week

Words + Music is the online magazine of SOCAN, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. Just as SOCAN was formed in 1990 by the merger of its predecessor Canadian performing rights organizations PROCAN and CAPAC, their separate magazines merged in 1994 to form Words + Music. Our mission is to provide interesting, high-quality content about the increasingly exciting and

LICENCIÉS :

Rédacteur En Chef:

Étienne Drapeau: forging ahead

Story by Nicolas Houle | June 17, 2013

Standing still? Not Étienne Drapeau. His fourth album, Le Monde est beau sees him broadening his writing skills, but it also sees him refining his interpretation skills, and through it all, he still found time to write a book. Meet an artist who thrives on challenges.

Étienne Drapeau has a lot to say. The interview, which was slated to last about 20 minutes, lasted close to an hour… It’s true that over the course of about 10 years, his career has bloomed quite impressively. Drapeau was one of the first losers in the second season of reality show Star Académie, in 2004, but that didn’t deter him one bit. His motivation? The naysayers. “When I came out of Star Académie, I wanted to play my demo to the management team, but they didn’t really want to. […] I also remember pitching my first song – “Je l’ai jamais dit à personne” – to the record label, and they told me “what you do ain’t bad, Étienne, but you definitely don’t have a hit.” That really was like a double-whammy…”

From that point on, Étienne decided to get involved in all aspects of his career, being all at once writer, composer, singer, agent and producer, and the result of his hard work was Je l’ai jamais dit à personne, which was released in 2006. He then criss-crossed Québec, stopping in every mall he could to promote his album with free mini-concerts. He thus managed to sell upward of 20 000 units, officially launching his post hockey career.

Beyond Love SongsWhether he likes it or not, it really does seem like Étienne Drapeau thrives on adversity. His most recent album, titled Le Monde est beau is another good example of this. He’s elected to move away from love songs, his trademark, to sing about Africa, Islam, social networks and even calling out Rivard, Vigneault, Piché, Lévesque and Leclerc about Québec’s sovereignty. “I’ve had four or five adult contemporary number ones with loves songs. I like it, but after four albums, it also became obvious to me that I would not do just that my whole life. I needed to show people that I can do other stuff.”

By moving into delicate social and political territory, Drapeau was confronted with the filters imposed by radio stations, who clearly preferred his usual repertoire. Therein lies one of his pet peeves: the amount of power radios have on the musical style of Québec artists. “They want a specific type of music and if you don’t fit the mold, they simply won’t play you. […] They tell you that what’s hot are people like Jason Mraz, John Mayer or James Blunt, but that’s not our reality… I get the feeling that there is a disinterest for local music, much like in the 80s.”

Even though Étienne Drapeau’s new creations did not get as much airplay as his previous material, it doesn’t mean they had less impact: many school principals have told him his humanist songs were being played in their establishments and “Tous ensemble (Inch’Allah)” took him to Morocco where he played for the opening ceremony of the Planèt’Ère Forum, in the spring of 2013.

Outside of One’s Comfort ZoneAfter eight years of working by the book, releasing an album every other year, Étienne Drapeau felt the need to go outside of his comfort zone. Thus, he joined the cast of Don Juan, fulfilling an old dream of his by playing in his favourite musical. That is where, however, he realized that being a performer is not as easy as it might seem: “It was a shock, because as a songwriter, I’m used to telling my own stories. I never had to ask myself how I was going to sing something so that it sounds sincere…” Drapeau got acquainted to the basics of theater play and learned how to make his emotions more intense by doing a healthy dose of introspection.

And through it all, the 35 year old man has also found time to write more than rhymes: he’s writing a book. Neither a fiction nor a traditional autobiography, but rather a tome that will explain his personal philosophy. He has no idea when that work will be completed, but admits to thoroughly enjoying the process. As for the singer-songwriter, he’ll be back at work in the fall, a perfect opportunity to meet with his fans once more, singing his newer material as well as his more romantic repertoire. “I don’t know how big a risk I took [with Le Monde est beau], but a human being cannot be defined solely in terms of sales or popularity, it must also define itself through art, words and music.”

Kris Dirksen and Methodic Doubt

Story by Kevin Young | June 16, 2013

Since Kris Dirksen and his U.S.-based writing partner Dane Short teamed up in 2008, the duo – collectively known as Methodic Doubt – have composed music for a huge variety of sci-fi, action and superhero film trailers. Growing up, however, Dirksen was more likely to mess around with a four-track tape recorder than pore over the latest adventures of any costumed superhero. “I played guitar and piano and made tapes for myself,” he says, “but being a composer seemed far out of reach growing up in the Vancouver suburbs.”

Instead, Dirksen went on to study law at UBC, but soon landed a licensing gig at Battleaxe Music. While there, when opportunities to compose and produce music for advertising came up that other artists weren’t interested in, Dirksen took them on himself. He learnt the trade by staying up late into the night writing – virtually every night – for two years.

“You just trust have to trust your musical judgment as an artist, take everyone’s opinions into consideration, and hope they like it.” – Kris Dirksen

Although trailers for film, television and video games remain a large part of Methodic Doubt’s business, they’ve recently branched out, scoring full soundtracks for the HBO hit Banshee, and now their first feature film Necessary Evil: The Villains of DC Comics, a documentary for Warner Bros. and DC Comics.

Their process is highly collaborative. “For trailers, Dane or I will start something and [we’ll] send it back and forth,” Dirksen says. “Sometimes a trailer house will take something and just cut it in. Sometimes we’ll write a song from scratch.” A major contributor to their success, he adds, is a willingness to push musical boundaries, an ethic informed by influences including trip-hop, heavy guitar-based music, and contemporary composers such as Clint Mansell, John Murphy and Tyler Bates. “With trailers, there are few limitations,” says Dirksen. “They want them to sound as big as possible. For Banshee there’s more subtlety involved, more interplay with the dialogue to serve the scene and the vision of the director.”

For Banshee they’re called upon to compose up to 45 minutes of music per episode each week, which requires Dirksen to travel to L.A. more often than trailer work does. It’s hectic, but so is composing for advertisements – a process that often finds the duo responding to contradictory opinions and decidedly non-musical descriptions.
“There’s a lot of interpretation,” says Dirksen, “but you just trust have to trust your musical judgment as an artist, take everyone’s opinions into consideration, and hope they like it.”

Track Record
• Methodic Doubt’s music has been featured in advertising campaigns for Nike, Vans, Red Bull and Mastercraft.
• Their compositions have been featured in films such as The Taking of Pelham 123, Happily N’ever After, and TV shows including Road Rules and Burn Notice
• The duo were tapped for the Banshee soundtrack by Executive Producer Greg Yaitanes (Lost, House)